Tag Archives: global health

STD Awareness: Eliminating HPV-Related Cancers

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Earlier this month, every major cancer center and organization in the country released a joint statement calling for the elimination of cervical cancer, along with all other HPV-related cancers. The elimination of a large swath of cancers might sound like a tall order — so far, we’ve only eradicated two viruses from the planet: smallpox and rinderpest. And we’re on the brink of getting rid of a third, the virus that causes polio.

But doing away with human papillomavirus (HPV) would herald a new chapter in disease eradication, because HPV causes cancer, meaning that eradicating HPV will eradicate the cancers caused by it. And the good news is we have all the tools we need to wipe HPV off the face of the earth — we just need to use them.

The tools to wipe a large class of cancers off the face of the earth are right under our noses — we just have to use them.

A quick rundown on HPV is in order. It’s the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world, and causes multiple cancers — cervical, head and neck, anal, vulvar, vaginal, and penile. While it’s most well-known for causing cervical cancer, here in the United States it is transitioning away from its old job, causing more head-and-neck cancers than cervical cancers. Nearly all sexually active people will be infected with HPV at least once in their lives, and though only a fraction of infections progress to cancer, its ubiquity means it still causes hundreds of thousands of cancers every year. In the United States, around 41,000 HPV-related cancers are diagnosed annually, while more than 600,000 are diagnosed worldwide. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Fighting Cervical Cancer Across the World

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Tomorrow kicks off World Immunization Week, a reminder that, just as disease can cross borders, so should our efforts to prevent it. Especially when we have an effective vaccine for one of the world’s top causes of cancer — but the people who need it most are less likely to get it.

Almost 90 percent of cervical-cancer deaths strike women in developing countries, where it is the second-most common cancer among women. In fact, over vast swaths of Africa, cervical cancer is the No. 1 cause of cancer death in women. (In the United States, it doesn’t even crack the Top 10.) While cervical cancer rates are holding steady in the developed world, in the coming decades they are projected to increase sharply in less developed regions.

More than 9 out of 10 cervical cancers strike women in countries with no HPV vaccination programs.

Since 2006 there has been a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical cancer. Unfortunately, while this vaccine is making impressive strides in the developed world, it is almost out of reach in the developing world, where it could save the most lives. To fully realize this vaccine’s potential, it needs to be distributed worldwide — not just within rich countries that can afford it.

Fighting Cervical Cancer in the Developed World

HPV has been nicknamed “the common cold of STDs” — because pretty much every sexually active person will get it at some point. It can be transmitted by vaginal, anal, and oral sex, as well as by rubbing genitals together, even without penetration. HPV can cause cancers of the throat, anus, vagina, vulva, and penis — but is most “famous” for causing cancer of the cervix (the tissue that connects the vagina to the uterus). If you have a cervix, there are two big things you can do to protect its health: receive regular Pap testing after becoming sexually active, and get vaccinated against HPV before becoming sexually active. When you take both of these steps, you’ll maximize what modern medicine has to offer. Continue reading →

July 11 Is UN World Population Day

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The following guest post comes to us via Esteban Camarena, a graduate student at the University of Arizona. He is currently in Brazil doing field research on politics and public health policy. He can be reached at estebanc@email.arizona.edu.

The world’s population is on the way to reaching 8.6 billion people by 2030 — that’s approximately 1.1 billion more inhabitants on the planet in less than 13 years. If we break it down further, that’s 84.6 million more people per year, 7.1 million per month, 1.8 million per week, or 252,0000 people added every day, roughly.

July 11 is UN World Population Day, which aims to create awareness of population growth issues and their relation to the environment and development. With the world’s population increasing every year, the limited amount of natural resources combined with the effect of climate change hinders any country’s ability to achieve sustainable economic growth and development. As the global population continues to grow, so too does the demand for food, water, energy, and land.

An investment in women’s health is an investment in families’ economic stability and a country’s development.

The inability to meet these demands will inevitably lead to malnutrition, poverty, and conflict between nations and people. This depletion of resources would particularly affect developing countries where the greatest amount of population growth is expected; in fact, more than half of the anticipated growth will occur in Africa, followed by Asia and Latin America. Among other factors, population growth is concentrated in these developing regions due to limited or lack of access to reproductive health care, family planning services, and sex education. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • With all of the shenanigans that have transpired in North Carolina over the years (their racially discriminatory voting debacles especially), it’s nice to be able to highlight the state for doing something positive for a change. North Carolina has managed to close its black-white maternal death gap. This is amazing and so important. (Vox)
  • I’m sure we all remember (and would like to forget) the Jan Brewer era? Well, friendly reminder: Arizona Already Tried What the GOP Wants to Do to Medicaid. It Was a Disaster. (Slate)
  • Our nomination for sentence of the week: “Whatever maternity care his mother got when she was pregnant with him helped him grow into the healthy, thriving, intolerable jerkoff he is today.” HA! (XX Factor)
  • Christian crisis pregnancy centers in Illinois are suing the state because they want to keep lying to vulnerable pregnant women about their options. Let’s hope they catch the ‘L’ they deserve. (Chicago Tribune)
  • The majority of women who have abortions are already mothers. They share their stories about why they chose to terminate their pregnancies. (Elle)
  • Parents are doing a mediocre job teaching teens about love, sex, and the misogyny that permeates our culture. Eighty-seven percent of teenage girls have experienced harassment, abuse, or assault. This is not OK. (NBC News)
  • Due to the fact that we have a thin-skinned narcissist with the restraint and civility of a toddler in the White House, there are obviously A LOT of concerns about national politics. However, we can’t lose sight of the fact that local politics have a much greater effect on most of our daily lives — especially for women. NARAL President Kaylie Hanson Long details why. (Think Progress)
  • Literally ALL the medical groups hate Trumpcare. Have they no compassion for the rich people who would be further enriched by GOP tax cuts?!? (NBC News)
  • Wow — a majority of GOP voters largely support Obamacare’s birth control mandate. Surprising! (The Hill)
  • While conservative politicians are doing everything within their power to ensure women have less access to birth control to prevent unintended pregnancy and less access to abortion to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, the foster care system is bursting at the seams with child victims of the opioid crisis. I personally have spent a great deal of time looking for SOME kind of evidence that the “pro-life” politicians who seek to restrict women’s rights are also advocating somehow for these children. Unfortunately I’m at a loss. Their privileged, traditional, nuclear families aren’t fostering them. They aren’t publicly advocating for them vocally. They aren’t trying to bring about meaningful change to the foster care system. Oddly, it seems like the “pro-life” advocacy only applies to CURRENT, not former, residents of a womb. Sad. (Mother Jones)
  • Well, this is heart-wrenching and tragic: In developing nations, 214 million women want to prevent pregnancy but have no contraception. How will poverty ever be eradicated if women have no control over their fertility, limited ability to prioritize their existing children and give them better opportunities, and no meaningful path toward economic independence? (XX Factor)

Let’s Talk Contraception: New Developments in Contraceptives for Women

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Image: Microchips Biotechnology

Image: Microchips Biotechnology

With the availability of an array of birth control methods ranging from pills to patches, from rings to shots, from male condoms to female condoms, and from implants to intrauterine devices, you might think there is no need for further research into contraception. But not all women around the world have access to the choices that many of us reading this article might take for granted. In fact, many have no access to contraceptives at all.

What do you think about a birth control implant that lasts 16 years and can be activated by remote control?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is leading the charge in the development of new types of contraceptives for women, especially those who live in areas of the world without easy access to modern contraceptives. According to the World Health Organization, 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. By giving large grants through their foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates are providing the financial backing for contraceptive research and drug development, which will enable women worldwide to take control of their health — and the health of their children.

In 2012, the Gates Foundation granted Microchips Biotech $6.7 million to develop a microchip implant containing the hormone levonorgestrel (which is a hormone in many oral birth control pills). This very small device, which measures only 20 millimeters by 20 millimeters by 7 millimeters, contains an internal battery and a microchip holding tiny reservoirs of the hormone. The device is implanted under the skin of a woman’s buttocks, upper arm, or abdomen. Once implanted, it releases 30 micrograms of levonorgestrel into the body each day when a small electrical charge inside the chip melts an ultra-thin seal around the hormone reservoir to release the daily dose of medication. Continue reading →

Care Is Here Because She’s Seen a World Without Planned Parenthood

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Children in West Africa. Photograph courtesy of Care.

Children in West Africa. Photograph courtesy of Care.

Our newest blogger is named Care, who shares with us the lessons she learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in this powerful piece.

My relationship with Planned Parenthood has grown and evolved over my life. When I was a kid, my dad, who was a clinic escort for Planned Parenthood, would tell me how important their work was and how thankful I should be every day for it. He used to walk up to anti-abortion people and ask them how many kids they had adopted, or offered to adopt, during their time as protesters.

In West Africa, there are no coat hangers. There are a lot of bicycle spokes, though.

I was never more than cursorily interested in Planned Parenthood and what they did though. Sure, they did STD prevention and treatment. Sure, they did women’s health. Sure, they did abortion services. But, like most people who grew up post-Roe v. Wade, that last one meant little to me. I never knew a world where abortions and birth control were inaccessible. I never knew a world where condoms and safer sex were not taught. So it is understandable that my dad, who would tell me about girls he knew who were seriously injured or even killed by back-alley abortions, would be more of an activist than I was.

This all changed in 2006. I was 23 years old and a Peace Corps volunteer. I was assigned to a village in a remote part of West Africa. The community told me that what they really needed was someone to help out in the “hospital,” a rural health clinic, the only one in the district. We served more than 20 villages in two countries. I was lucky — I worked with dedicated people who cared more about the welfare of the community than anything else.

One of these things was helping with women who had “fallen off a bicycle.” For the first time in my life, I was living in a place where abortion was illegal. Continue reading →

Happy New Year and Family Planning for All!

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Happy New Year! With the start of the Affordable Care Act this year and birth control available to many American women without a co-pay, we have made great strides to decrease unintended pregnancies in the United States. I was about to write about new contraceptives that may be coming down the pipeline that could add to the already vast array of choices American women have for family planning. As I lay in my warm bed, thankful for being safe and well fed, I thought about women around the world who do not have the choices I have. They aren’t reading articles about new advances in contraceptive choices. Many have no access to contraceptives at all. Globally, 222 million women have an “unmet need for contraception.”

Let’s create a healthier world where we all have access to family planning!

One of the most essential ways to increase a woman’s health and independence is to provide access to family planning. When women have access to contraception, fewer unintended pregnancies result and also fewer unsafe abortions. Women who continue to have unintended pregnancies risk not only their health and the health of their child, they also have fewer educational and economic opportunities. When a woman is able to time and space her pregnancies, the woman, her children, and her community fare better. In communities where rapid population growth is related to unintended pregnancies, social and economic progress is impaired.

Limited access to contraceptives is just a part of the problem. Fear of using modern contraceptives such as the birth control pill also contribute to decreased use of some contraceptives. In many countries, religious and cultural values may have an impact on family planning efforts. Lack of  donor support to put programs of education and access in place are also a factor, especially when many political discussions associate family planning with abortion. Continue reading →